


Crooked Hearts

by within_a_dream



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Sex and/or Gender Changes, Background Goodnight/Billy, F/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Transphobia, Trans Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 12:00:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15863196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/within_a_dream/pseuds/within_a_dream
Summary: Faraday doesn't get too close to people - too big a change that strangers will try to force him back into a dress instead of seeing him as a man. But when a warrant officer waltzes into town and buys Faraday's services, he finds himself as part of a group of misfits with secrets of their own.





	Crooked Hearts

Joshua Faraday didn’t have allies, much less friends. He had marks and he had enemies, and if he waited long enough, the first always became the second. So he was more than a little startled when Sam Chisolm, duly sworn warrant officer and licensed peace officer in ten states, bought Faraday’s horse off the man who’d practically stolen him and offered him a job.

Faraday didn’t work in groups, as a rule. He preferred to slip in and out, and he had his own reasons for keeping his distance. But Chisolm had put on an impressive show at the saloon, and the promise of  money had a draw to it. Might as well tag along, he figured, and see where things went.

 

Their first night riding, Faraday remembered why he traveled alone. Keeping his distance from the rest of the group when he laid his blanket out, sneaking off far enough to piss without risking anyone else seeing, keeping his face dirty enough that no one would question his lack of stubble—more trouble than it was worth. The longer he stayed with Chisolm, and Mrs. Emma Cullen, and Teddy Q, the more risk they’d catch him with his trousers down (so to speak) and try to force him back into dresses. There was a reason he’d left his hometown and the name his mother had given him behind as soon as she was dead and buried, and a reason he hadn’t taken up with anyone else since.

 

He didn’t sleep well, even when he wasn’t on watch. He wasn’t used to people breathing next to him, kept waking up in a panic when Emma rolled over or Chisolm snored. He woke up the next morning barely less tired than he’d been the night before, and was entirely unprepared for Chisolm to corner him when he was outside of camp, having just taken his morning piss. Thank the Lord Chisolm  hadn’t come by a few minutes earlier.

“You’ve got a clean shave,” Chisolm said, and maybe Faraday had sent up his thanks a mite too early. “Hard to keep that up on the road.”

“My ma always did mock me for how slow I was to grow a beard,” Faraday said suspiciously.

“No need to worrry on my account, son.” Chisolm smiled at him, which didn’t help Faraday’s unease like he’d likely meant it to. “I’ve never had much trouble keeping a close shave either, if you catch my meaning.”

And looking Chisolm over, Faraday did. The smooth face, the baggy shirt and layered vest—seems he hadn’t needed to be so careful after all. “Your Emma Cullen—she know?”

Chisolm shook his head. “I do have a reputation to uphold.”

Faraday nodded and started back towards the camp, stopping when Chisolm called him back.

“That’s not why I tracked you down, just thought I ought to set your mind at ease. I’ve got a friend that needs fetching. You’ll go down to Volcano Springs and ask for Goodnight Robicheaux.”

“ _The_ Goodnight Robicheaux? He wants in on this fool’s errand?” Faraday raised an eyebrow.

“He will when he hears Sam Chisolm sent you,” Chisolm replied.

“And do I need to worry about your man Robicheaux pegging me like you did?”

“Maybe, but you don’t need to worry about him telling anyone. Goodnight was Aurore Robicheaux before the war.”

“You got a whole battalion of men like us, Chisolm?”

Chisolm laughed. “It’s a matter of convenience more than anything for Goody. She might still be wearing dresses if she hadn’t ended up a war hero under her new name.”

 

And so Faraday rode off in search of Goodnight Robicheaux, Angel of Death, wondering all the while how exactly a Confederate war hero had come to be acquainted with Sam Chisolm, and how she’d managed to keep herself a secret for twenty-odd years. He would’ve been just fine by himself, and he told Chisolm as much, but he got  stuck with Teddy Q tailing behind him like a lost puppy anyway.

The poor boy had tried to make conversation for the first few miles of the ride, but Faraday soon had him trained out of that. A few off-color jokes, a few incredibly embellished anecdotes about the women he’d had, and Teddy was blushing like a schoolgirl and holding his tongue. Faraday knew he shouldn’t take so much joy from torturing him, but a man had to have his fun somehow.

 

Goodnight was the most flamboyant person Faraday had ever met. Faraday had never shied away from attention himself, but the fear of being found out was never far from his mind. He’d run his mouth, but he knew when to shut up. Goodnight spread her arms and shouted for everyone to watch her, and far be it from Faraday to judge, since she’d made it twenty years with no one cottoning on.

Poor lost pup Teddy was even more discomfited by Goodnight than he’d been by Faraday, and Faraday couldn’t help but smirk at that. Although he didn’t dare make fun, since they both found themselves more than a little terrified of Robicheaux’s traveling companion.

Billy Rocks (a blatant alias if Faraday had ever heard one) looked dangerous even when he was slumped over smoking a cigarette. Robicheaux’s tale of their first meeting, which put Rocks’s skills effortly on display, didn’t dispel that impression. He kept silent, mostly, in  contrast to Robicheaux’s chatter.

Faraday couldn’t resist poking at him, he’d never had much common sense, although the longer he looked at Rocks’s impassive face, the more he regretted his comment.

When Rocks finally deigned to respond with a flat, “That was funny,” Faraday had the distinct impression he was being laughed at, and not for the right reasons.

Robicheaux didn’t seem to see anything unusual about Faraday, a balm to both his pride and his sense of security after Chisolm had spotted him so easily.

When Faraday suggested a drink, Robicheaux eagerly took him up on the offer. She bought them a round—a blessing, since Faraday had been flat cleaned out. Rocks had a glass to every three of Robicheaux’s, and Teddy didn’t drink at all. Faraday learned absolutely nothing about Robicheaux that he hadn’t known before, her tongue not loosened in the slightest by the whiskey. It was amazing, really, how she could talk so much but say so little. Even when she _did_ say something half-illuminating, it had the ring of a well-polished story. Her tale of her and Rocks’s first meeting had flowed off her tongue like a psalm committed to memory, and although Faraday had trouble reading him, Rocks might’ve looked quietly amused at the whole thing. Nothing the rest of the night came even close to a kernel of honest truth like that one had.

 

But Faraday didn’t mind the lack of truth to it, having gotten pleasantly drunk over the course of the night. Maybe a bit more than pleasantly, he reflected as he tried for the third time to hoist himself up on Jack.

“Need a hand?” Robicheaux came up behind him and steadied his legs as Faraday  swung himself into the saddle.

Faraday tipped his hat in thanks. “We ought to get going. Your friend Chisolm will have my hide if I deliver you late.”

Robicheaux nodded, getting astride his own horse. “How _did_ you find yourself in his company, Mr. Faraday?”

“I lost my horse in a game of dice, and Chisolm was kind enough to buy him back, but not kind enough to give him to me no-strings-attached. I’m earning him back, and more than that besides when we finish what he’s been hired to do.” Faraday wasn’t drunk enough not to realize how foolish it sounded, laid out like that. He also wasn’t drunk enough to tell all and sundry the exact ties of kinship between him and Sam Chisolm, and that those ties and a horrible feeling of boredom were the only reasons he hadn’t up and left when he heard the man they were going after was Bart Bogue. “He’s very persuasive,” he added.

“That he is,” Robicheaux replied, with a tone like she’d gotten wrapped up in a few of Chisolm’s schemes herself.

The rest of the ride passed in amiable conversation between Faraday and a somewhat infuriatingly sober Robicheaux, with a few words from Rocks and only angry glares from Teddy, who was looking at the rest of them like someone had crushed a stinkbug right against his cheek. Not too happy with the would-be saviors of his little town, it seemed. Chisolm might be to his taste, but the rest of their merry band of rogues were clearly nothing like he’d hoped.

 

When they got back to the camp and saw Chisolm’s latest recruit, Faraday began to see Teddy’s point.  Robicheaux was a legend, but didn’t look like much. Faraday had been playing the fool too long to stop even if he wanted. And then this new fellow Chisolm’d pulled from who knew where—clothes hanging loose off him and a wary look like he was expecting danger any minute. Even Faraday was beginning to doubt their ability to complete their mission.

“I don’t know about this one,” Robicheaux said to Chisolm, gesturing at Faraday. She didn’t even try to keep her voice down, and Faraday didn’t want to admit how much it rankled. Not quite fair to take it out on the Mexican (Vasquez, he learned later), but when had Faraday ever been fair?

Robicheaux strolled up to Emma to introduce herself, all gallantry and flirtation that Faraday never dared show for fear a woman would take him up on it. Although it was clear it was just empty words, with how obviously she was in love with Rocks. Emma seemed more impressed with Robicheaux  after that introduction, although her tagalong Teddy still didn’t seem pleased.

 

Faraday had  just plopped down under a tree to let the booze wear off when Chisolm, who seemed to take joy in dragging Faraday up from his long-awaited nap, called the group together.

“I have one more friend to ask after,” he said, before leading them off across the plains, not a word about who this friend might be.

Whoever Faraday had been expecting to find in the mountains Chisolm led them to, it wasn’t Jane Horne. He especially didn’t expect to find her taking down two men with the same hatchet, still bleeding from where they’d smashed a rock over her head. Sam Chisolm certainly did have some famous friends.

Unfortunately for Miss Cullen’s cause, Horne seemed as unimpressed with their ragtag band as they were impressed by her. Faraday told himself that it was a reflection of her reluctance to socialize rather than her impression of their chances, but he couldn’t quite convince himself. A long ride for nothing, but Chisolm didn’t seem entirely surprised. Well, at least he seemed confident in the ability of the five of them to take on a hired army, even if Horne wasn’t.

 

That night, Faraday was too drunk to feel the awkwardness of sleeping in a group after so long alone. And traveling with a group did have its advantages—keeping watch was much easier when you could alternate, and it let him use his own time on watch to admire his company. He might have blown his chances at even an amicable acquaintanceship with Vasquez, but damn if the man wasn’t easy on the eyes. Not that Faraday would have had much hope of mutual attraction even if he hadn’t ridden in acting the drunken fool—he’d never been much of a judge of whether a man would welcome advances, or whether that man would balk at what was between his legs. Sure, Faraday had taken his chances with a few men, and a few women, but he didn’t much like the thought of mucking up a paying job because he wanted to get laid. No, thank you, admiring from afar would do. It was a beautiful night for daydreaming, and he’d be sure to put his idle fancies out of mind by morning.

Vasquez, who had been by all appearances sound asleep, cracked open an eye and glared at Faraday. Faraday shot him an equally unpleasant look  and turned back out to the horizon, his heart skipping a beat in his chest. He didn’t get up the nerve to look back over until Chisolm came to relieve him.

 

Waking up to Horne tiptoeing into their camp and the arrival of a Comanche brave who’d apparently been stalking them for at least a day was not Faraday’s idea of an ideal start to the day. Chisolm did seem to have matters in hand, though, and Lord knew they could use the extra hands. He had no idea what Chisolm had said to this Red Harvest fellow, but it got him to join them at the camp and lay his bow down. He seemed an odd duck, their latest recruit, but he probably wouldn’t murder them in their sleep.

That set them at seven hired guns and a town that couldn’t have much to offer in the way of soldiers against all of Bart Bogue’s money. If Faraday had been up against worse odds before, he couldn’t remember it, but only a coward would walk away now, and Joshua Faraday wasn’t a coward.

 

When they arrived at Rose Creek, he realized their odds were even worse than he’d thought. Half the men in the town didn’t even know how to hold a gun, and one of their seven professionals was too much of a shaky-handed coward to shoot hers at anything that mattered. But Faraday _wasn’t_ a coward, and besides that, Sam Chisolm still owned his horse.

The feeling of doom wasn’t helping his attraction to Vasquez any. What could it hurt, the devil on his shoulder kept telling him, to take a risk? They’d just as likely both be dead within the week anyway. Might as well get laid one last time before he went.

It certainly wasn’t anything more than lust. Faraday most definitely wasn’t catching a case of feelings for a scrawny outlaw who knew his way around both a gun and a handsaw. Faraday had never let love get the better of him, and like hell was he going to start now. Even if he found himself drifting off into sickeningly sugar-sweet daydreams about riding off into the sunset and going on the run together.

 

It seemed he hadn’t hidden his pining as well as he’d thought, because Robicheaux and Rocks cornered him on their way back from the makeshift shooting range.

“You won’t get anything you don’t ask for, Joshua,” Robicheaux said.

Faraday half-wanted to punch the smile off her face. “Who says I want anything?” he said instead.

“You aren’t subtle.” Rocks gestured to Vasquez, who was leaning against a wall oblivious to their conversation and who Faraday most definitely had not been staring at wistfully.

“I don’t know where you two are from, but hereabouts a man has to be careful about making a move on another man. Especially if that man may have some things about himself he’d rather _keep_ to himself.” He didn’t know how much Chisolm had told them, but Faraday thought that Robicheaux at least would take his hint.

“He’s been making eyes at you,” Rocks said, blunt as anything. “You don’t have anything to worry about.”

Robicheaux nudged him. “You ought to have a little patience, given how long it took you to try anything with  me.”

Rocks shrugged and said, “That was different.”

“Of course it was, cher.” Robicheaux winked, and Rocks flashed her a smile. “We traveled together for months, every moment of which I spent spurning Billy’s advances because I thought she was a man who thought I was a man. It turns out Billy thought the same thing. We both felt like fools when we sorted things out. Don’t assume you know what your Vasquez wants.”

“He ain’t mine,” Faraday grumbled half-heartedly. Damn, he’d never have pegged Rocks. There was hardly an average man among the hired guns at this point.

 

Faraday wanted to shake off the advice, but truth was he probably needed it. Robicheaux and Rocks weren’t good enough observers that they’d be the only people who’d noticed his foolish pining. And maybe it was wishful thinking, but now that he was keeping his eyes open for it, he could swear he’d seen Vasquez returning some of his looks. With the battle that lay ahead of them the next morning, there was less and less stopping him from making a proposal.

Still, though  might’ve been brave enough to go up against Bartholomew Bogue and face down his death, Faraday was nowhere near brave enough to take on this conversation sober. Luckily, the rest of the group had the same plan for the night as he did—get drunk and have a damn good time.

 

Sitting in Rose Creek’s only tavern, sloshing whiskey everywhere and laughing his ass off, Faraday was happier than he could remember being in a long time. It almost felt like family, even with Horne in the corner hoping they’d see the error of their sinful ways. Gave him another reason to be scared to death of talking to Vasquez—it would be so easy to tip over the careful balance they’d built up.

But damn it all, he wasn’t going to die with this on his chest, so when Vasquez slipped outside a little after midnight, Faraday followed him.

“Come to keep me company, guero?” Vasquez grinned, and now Faraday knew he wasn’t imagining the reciprocal glances and smiles. That was some pure unadulterated innuendo.

“Just looking for a little quiet conversation,” he replied. “Although there’s something I’ve been dyin’ to ask you.”

Vasquez gave a shrug. “Whatever you want to know.”

Maybe not the best way to ease into an emotional conversation, but he’d been wondering about this since Vasquez joined their group. “What did you do to get that high a bounty on your head, anyway?” Faraday sipped his whiskey (leisurely, he didn’t want to be any drunker than he already was for this conversation) and hoped Vasquez wouldn’t shoot him for his audacity.

“Killed a Texas Ranger.”

Faraday whistled. “That’ll do it. You have a good reason?”

“That’s a long story, guero.”

Faraday might’ve felt bad about causing the worry on Vasquez’s face if he wasn’t so desperately curious about that long story. “We’ve got time.”

“He found out too much about me.” Vasquez looked him over, maybe trying to decide how much to share. “I took my woman far away from our town to marry her. They don’t let two women marry, so I stole my brother’s best suit and got away from the people who knew me.” Vasquez leveled a glare at Faraday, like she ( _she--_ the word sat funny in Faraday’s mind even if, looking back, he could maybe see this coming) expected him to object.

“I ain’t gonna make a fuss about it.” And now it was Faraday left floundering for a way to put what he wanted to say. “I ain’t a woman, but—I’ve got a lot of reasons people might mistake me for one. I threw out my dresses and left home as soon as my mother died. So you and me have a bit in common, here.”

She nodded at him, shoulders relaxing. “And besides all that, she was engaged back home. He was a good man, a kind man, but Marisela didn’t love him. And if she married him, we wouldn’t be able to see each other, not like we had. So we rode until we reached the border and we bought a plot of land, and we got married the next day.

“We kept to ourselves, and I found a job. We made it like that for a year, maybe more, until that Ranger rode into town. He knew me, I don’t know how. Pulled me aside when I was walking home and said if I didn’t meet him in his room that night and do what he told me to, he’d tell the town about me and drag me back home. So I walked up to his door with a gun in my waistband, and shot him in the head.”

“Oh, he definitely deserved it.”

Vasquez laughed bitterly. “I went home with his blood on my shirt, and told Marisela we had to leave. I rode for the border, she rode for home. She thought marrying Luis would be better than spending God knows how long as the wife of an outlaw, and I don’t blame her. And here I am.” She spread her arms, a harsh smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “On the run so long I barely felt human by the time I took up with Chisolm, and now likely to die.”

“No reason to think about that.” Faraday took another swig of whiskey. “Can I ask your name?”

Vasquez looked at him, puzzled.

“It’s just, you know mine,” he said, “and maybe I’d like to think of you as something other than Vasquez. Only if you’re--”

“Soledad.”

“Soledad...” Faraday tried to say it like she had, but the sounds came out of his mouth a dozen kinds of mixed up. “It’s pretty, when you say it. Not so much when I do.”

She laughed, a little sadly. “You know what it means? Being alone. I think my mamá knew my future too well when I was born.”

“We can fix that,” Faraday said. “The loneliness.” _He_ could fix it, he meant, although he still wasn’t sure he wouldn’t regret this.

Vasquez looked around, eyes scanning over the empty street and the dark windows, before taking his hand in hers.

It’d been so long since Faraday had risked anything like this. He wanted to lean into her, wanted to kiss her senseless in spite of the too-open setting. But he couldn’t help thinking about what she’d told him of her past. Not that she’d had someone else, but that that someone had been a wife. Was she looking at Faraday and seeing a feminine fullness of his lips, a curve to his hips he’d tried so hard to hide?

He was drunker than he’d meant to get. He didn’t want to think about this, not tonight.

Vasquez leaned forward to kiss him.

Faraday leaned into it for a split second. Then he stood up. “I can’t...” Couldn’t what? He didn’t know what to say, so he made a break for the inn.

“Guero!” Vasquez called after him, but she didn’t follow.

 

The next day passed in a blur. Draw, point, and shoot; draw, point, and shoot. He might have fucked things up with Vasquez, but he knew how to shoot a goddamn gun. Even the shot to the gut didn’t throw him (although seeing Vasquez go after the man who’d shot him nearly did). And then Bogue wheeled out his goddamn Gatling gun, and Faraday saw in his mind’s eye everyone in this godforsaken town being shot to bits. He wasn’t about to let that happen. Ignoring the chaos around him, he set off walking towards the source of the shots.

 

Faraday woke up in a bed with freshly-starched sheets. He hadn’t expected that, waking up.

Then he felt the pain in his chest, and began to wish he hadn’t woken after all.

 

He was in and out for a while after that. How long, he couldn’t say. There were people at his bedside sometimes, talking. There were other people in the room in the beginning, bedridden like him—he thought he saw Goody out of the corner of his eye, leg wrapped up in white and Billy next to her, and Horne with a seeping red stain growing across the bandage that bound up her shoulder. And then they were gone, and it was just Faraday, and the fire across his chest and the pain in his leg when he tried to move.

 

The first time he was awake and lucid, Vasquez was sitting in a chair next to him, slumped over asleep. She had a bandage wrapped around her arm, but otherwise looked no worse for wear. Thank God for that—as much as Faraday knew it was a stupid idea to get attached, he couldn’t bear the thought of her dying. He’d realized that as soon as Bogue had brought out the goddamn Gatling gun. He’d never been one for self-sacrifice, but it seemed like this old pony had learned a few new tricks.

He’d almost forgotten their last, disastrous conversation by the time Vasquez woke up.

“You’re awake!” she said, like it wasn’t obvious to both of them, but the sound of her voice made something in his chest flutter.

“As are you,” he replied.

Joy and fury warred on her face. “You _idiot_ , you could have died! Thirteen days I’ve waited, not sure if you would wake up after you charged after Bogue. Do you think you’re invincible, or do you have a death wish?”

Not much space between the two, in Faraday’s experience. He wanted to reach out and wipe her tears away, but he was bound up in bandages and in the memory of the last time they touched. “Thought it’d be better that I died than anyone else. We needed that gun gone, and I’ve got no one to miss me.”

“You have me.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper, threatening to break. “Did you think of that?”

Faraday was half-grateful for the wounds keeping him from walking away like a coward. “I was a proper ass last time we talked, I know that. But I got...I mean...” He shut his eyes, not wanting to look at her. “You love women, and I ain’t one.”

Vasquez let out a snort. He risked a glance over, and saw a smile playing at her lips. “I loved _a_ woman, _idiota_. I think I have room in my heart for a man as well.”

Faraday couldn’t keep the grin off his face. “I might just be able to make room for a woman in mine, then. On one condition.”

Vasquez raised an eyebrow. “What’s that?”

“You tell me what _guero_ means.”

She laughed. “It just means ‘blond man’. Nothing special.”

“And here I was thinking you were calling me handsome, or confessing your undying love for me.”

“I can do that too, if you like.” She slid her chair closer to his bed, leaning closer to him. “ _Guapo_ is handsome, which I will grudgingly admit you are. _Querido_ – beloved. _Amor_.” She kissed him in place of a definition, but he couldn’t say he minded.

“ _Amor_ ,” Faraday said, his mouth fumbling the word.

Vasquez laughed. “We will work on that,” she said, and kissed him again, laying a hand on his chest.

Faraday let out a muffled groan, and Vasquez jerked away.

“I’m sorry!”

“No need to be,” Faraday grumbled, “you’re not the one hurt me in the first place. If it weren’t for these damned burns, I’d have you on the bed right now.”

“Prove you’re the world’s greatest lover, yes?”

Faraday winked.

 

As it turned out, recovering from being nearly blown to bits took a good while. Faraday spent his first few weeks of wakefulness in excruciating pain, and the next few itching so badly under his bandages that he almost wanted the pain back. At least the laudanum had taken the edge off the pain; not much it could do for this. The doctor informed him this meant he was healing, and although Faraday couldn’t quite bring himself to share his enthusiasm, it was heartening to see.

He had plenty of visitors. Vasquez spent hours in the makeshift infirmary, and although it rankled a bit to see the bandage come off her arm before he could even sit up on his own, Faraday appreciated the company. She kept him updated on the town's rebuilding, and taught him bits and pieces of Spanish until the way he repeated her words didn't make her laugh.

Chisolm came up to see him one afternoon, walking like he was about to ask Faraday to run in front of another Gatling gun. "You thought about what you'll do with yourself after you're up and walking again?"

Faraday grinned. "You have an offer?"

“Rose Creek’s had their fill of us, but there’s plenty of others out there who could use help. If you’re willing, there’s a place for you, and I’ll even let you keep my horse.”

“I do believe I’ve earned that horse back five times over.” Faraday grinned. “But I could be persuaded to throw in lots with you, so long as you don’t mind putting up with me—I think I’ll be a bit slower than I used to. Who else did you ask?”

“You’re my last holdout. The rest of the group is in, as is Miss Cullen.”

The others didn’t surprise him, not a one of them had anything else to go back to. But Emma—he did wonder a bit at that. Then again, he knew too well what it was like to live as a woman in towns like these, and with the blood of your family seeped into the soil besides. “You have plans? Besides ride out of town before the good people of Rose Creek decide they’re sick of us and chase us out themselves, that is.”

Chisolm laughed at that. “I’ve got a few bounties who were last seen around here, figured we could get our feet under us.”

“When do we leave?”

“When all of us can ride again.”

Faraday was the only one who couldn’t, but Chisolm was kind enough not to say it. And although his skin crawled a bit at the thought of the rest of their band waiting on him to recover, it wasn’t enough to turn him off of his agreement. Faraday might be an idiot sometimes, but he knew enough to know that he wasn’t going to come across another group like this, and like hell was he going to let the first group of people he’d trusted in years walk away from him. Not to mention that he’d be a fool to let Vasquez go before he was healed up enough to kiss her properly.

No, he was here to stay.

**Author's Note:**

> A million thanks to [chibifukurou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chibifukurou/pseuds/Chibifukurou) for both the gorgeous art and accommodating my last-minute suggestions, and to telm_393 for betaing, handholding, and answering my thousand and one inane historical questions.
> 
> I have backstories planned out for almost all the characters (haven't quite settled on Sam's yet), but since we were in Faraday's head for this fic they didn't make it in. I'm planning on writing more, but if you want to know about your fave hit me up in the comments!
> 
> Title from Auden's "As I Walked Out One Evening", by way of [Poem Line For Title](poemlinefortitle.tumblr.com).


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